Students obtaining support from CUIMC IT technicians, whether via phone, remote access, or in person, must comply with governing Columbia University Information Technology Policies, CUIMC Information Security Procedures and the following.
Requirements
- Support of personally owned student computers is best effort. The student must be currently enrolled in a program at the Medical Center to qualify for student support. Other CUIMC affiliates including Postdoctoral fellows/scholars/researchers, faculty, staff, and any equipment owned by a department fall under Faculty and Staff Support requirements.
- Students are responsible for configuring campus resources such as wired, wireless, printing, email, software installation, etc. on their own computers and devices. Resources and detailed instructions can be found on the CUIMC IT website with Printable Tutorials available online and at the Service Desk.
- The following services are not provided for student systems:
- Rebuilds (complete re-installation of all software)
- Operating System installation or upgrading
- Installation or troubleshooting of virtual environments to run another operating system
- Installation or troubleshooting of encryption software or encrypted files
- For assistance with these services please contact a commercial vendor such as Techs in a Sec or Apple support.
- Support for computers and equipment over 3 years old is best effort only. Older equipment cannot be guaranteed to be compatible with University and Medical Center technical resources.
- Students must be performing regular backups as per Computer Use requirements. Backup of data by the user/owner applies when any service will be performed by CUIMC IT.
- CUIMC IT cannot be held liable for lost data due to corruption, malware, failure to back up or any other reason.
- Backed up data must be appropriately encrypted; all policies for data backups and encryption apply as well.
- CUIMC IT does not keep licenses, keys, installation files or other required materials for software that may need to be re-installed. More information can be found on the Software and Operating System support requirements page.
Procedure
To request technical support, currently enrolled Medical Center students may call extension 5-Help (212-305-4357) option 5, email 5help@cumc.columbia.edu, use chat (select Get Help from our main menu, Login in the upper right and sign in with your UNI account, then click the chat icon in the lower right), or visit the Tech Bar Walk-in Desk. Hours for phone, email, and walk-in support are 7 days a week, chat is from 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday. Please provide your UNI, current contact information, and specific information about any issue.
- Students with network-related issues should call from their location. This allows the phone technician determine if the problem is specific to the area.
- The Service Desk will provide initial troubleshooting for technical issues, though during busy periods staff may not be able to provide immediate assistance.
- Advanced issues may require special arrangements and/or an appointment with a User Services (desktop) technician. If so you will be given a help desk ticket number for reference.